Sublime Text 2 is since some time my favorite code editor. I use it for everything these days, from Python and Amiga assembler to the code for this website. It’s polished, it’s elegant, and its API is dead easy to use for extending Sublime with custom functionality. I’m that geeky that I still fall in love with simple but beautiful applications.

Anyway, back to the subject, even though we are now getting a very robust and awesome Python implementation in LightWave 3D eleven, that goes above and beyond what we ever could do with LScript, I’ll probably still dabble around in LScript from time to time. At least when doing quick adjustments to older scripts that I don’t currently see any point in spending time to rewrite in Python.

So I’ve made my LScript Package that I created for Sublime Text some time ago available at GitHub for sharing. And by that also open it up for anyone else to add to and improve upon using GitHub’s social collaboration features for coding.

Check out this video for a quick demonstration:

So if you’re into LScript, and have wanted to give Sublime Text a spin, go ahead and grab my LScript package for it.

LScript Package for Sublime Text

Oh, and one more thing, by the time LightWave 3D eleven hits the shelves, I’ll get a lwsdk Python package for Sublime Text going.

Cheers!

What’s been keeping me from doing it earlier is to find and understand under what Open Source license to release them under. Many people just grab a license, often GPL, without really understanding what affect that actually will have on their software. I wanted to make an educated choice and do my research so I didn’t fall into any traps.

GPL was the first license I looked at, but it’s not very suitable at all to release open source plugins and scripts under. I found out that releasing a plugin under GPL for LightWave 3D actually violates the GPL. You cannot release a plugin for a non-free program like LightWave and the way LightWave handles plugins under GPL. Well, you can, but then you have to modify the GPL. That was just not a road I wanted to travel, and combined with all the restrictions GPL applies on the software, made me abandon the idea of using GPL.

Instead after reading and comparing a bunch of other open source licenses I ended up using the new BSD license which was exactly what I wanted out of the box. It is a very permissive license that allows you to use the source code in many more ways than GPL allows you to. You can do pretty much anything you want with my sources, including using them in closed software projects without having to share your code, as long as my copyright is left intact.

And the reason I’m using Google Code is that, well, it will probably be around for a very long time, to eliminate the risk that they would one day disappear from the net.

Excellent! So if you’re interested in LScripting, feel free to download and dissect my sources, make your own versions and so on…

My Google Code Project Page
Browse the Source Codes
Checkout the Source Codes with Subversion

Enjoy!

We had already talked about getting more data pushed between meshes this way, and when also Timothy Albee asked if Weight Map transfers could be added to the Conform tool, I made a branch with this variation.

As it was something I already had in mind, and it wasn’t that much work to change a few things to copy vertex maps instead of conforming the geometry after the matching has been processed, the transfer version was alive in a few hours. Sunday fun! This first iteration can transfer Weights, Morphs and Selection Sets by matching the UV layout. Feel free to get the tool if this is something you’d find useful.

Read more and download Transfer By UV

Lee talks about the different modes, showing how and when to use it and runs through some practical examples with a few character models.

Lots of good information if you’re interested in using this tool.

Visit the plugin page and check the video out

The concept behind this LightWave 3D modeler addition is to be able to use a base mesh and conform it to other variations, even if the variations have gone through major changes. Like chopping off and replacing body parts, dramatically altering the look, size and proportions. The plugin uses the UV layout as a point of reference to find which points to match between the source and destination mesh to perform the conform. The only requirement is that the UV map layout is basically kept identical between the different meshes to be used.

By using the UV layout to make the conform, point order and point count becomes irrelevant. This is especially useful when working with sculpting applications and then bringing back variations to be used for morphs or new meshes.

Read more and download the plugin here

This started out as a script I wrote a long time ago when I worked with a project where I constantly needed to change between different Global Illumination settings, so to keep my sanity I whipped up a script to quickly switch them on the fly.

Render Presets for LightWave 3D

I continued to find it useful and over time I’ve included additional settings that I’ve had use for. I finally decided to clean up the user interface to be more generic and add more of LightWave’s common render settings so I could release it in public. In this release presets can be setup for Global Illumination, Render Flags, Camera Antialiasing, Backdrop and Processing Effects. I might add a few more options in the future when time permits.

Read more and download the plugin here

So I thought it would be a nice idea to make a video tutorial on some useful concepts where the tools can speed up the daily workflow. So below you’ll find an EasySplit usage tutorial.

I start the tutorial by going through some basic concepts with the tool, and then I show a shorter modeling session for a few minutes – making a simple pouch and using the plugin to draw in a wrinkle in the geometry, one of many typical cases where it can save some decent amount of time.

This video also gave me the opportunity to try out the new HD support on YouTube to ditch YouTube and start using Vimeo for my HD videos instead, so I recorded it in High Definition 720p, and the HD mode is selected by default in the player, so the video should look nice and crisp even in fullscreen. If you’re on a slower connection, you might want to uncheck the HD button in the player.

Okay, let’s see how this works out, as it was my first attempt to create a video tutorial (except a few quick ones for my own plugins). Well, I hope some of you will find this tutorial useful, and if so I could probably record a few more on different subjects – time permitting.

It’s getting closer to completion.
Here’s the latest render test, the hair definitely needs more work…

Todays update of Elly, added first draft of Hair.

I didn’t have so much time to work with this tonight, but since yesterday I have done a few things anyway.

I cleaned up some more of the textures, and improved the skin shading network with some additional subtle SSS added to it to get a warmer tone to softer parts of the skin. I tweaked her left eyebrow a tiny bit so they are not completely symmetrical, and finally made some hair render tests of the hair guides I’ve been working on for her, rendered with FiberFX in LightWave. I still have to do quite some more work to the guides, as well as work on the hair material. The shadow from the hair for the above render is pretty rough, so it looks a bit soft and strange in some regions. I will raise the quality of the shadow when I have all guides in place where I want them.

That’s it for tonight, a few tips will follow below, other than that, I hope I have some more time tomorrow to spend on this project.

Here is my node network for the Simple Skin material I have used on Elly together with the settings for the Simple Skin material. Many settings are driven by texture maps, which I have painted in ZBrush. I have also blended in the SSS2 shader for some additional SubSurface Scattering control. I love the SSS2 shader, so fast with beautiful quality.

Simple Skin Node Setup (Click to enlarge)

Bonus FiberFX Script

FiberFX Button

Here’s a small LScript, which simply allows you to add FiberFX to your layout menus. If you use FiberFX often like I do, it can come in handy. It’s much faster to have FiberFX attached to a button than to have to Ctrl+F8, drop down the menu, select FiberFilter then double click. This script does that, and when FiberFX is added to the scene, it opens the FiberFX panel with the button. I find it to be a convenient time saver and I have added it to my Workflow tab in Layout where I have all my most used tools collected.

Download Open_FFX.ls

Over and out, Cheers!

We have the native FiberFX as well as the Sasquatch plugin from Worley Labs. Unfortunately the actual creation and styling of hair guides is still a bit cumbersome in LightWave, which is a shame really as the quality of the renders can be of outstanding quality.

FiberFX has done some progress in the effort of bringing hair styling tools into LightWave, but it’s still not as powerful as you can find in some other applications. And in the day and age of the common multi application pipeline you simply use the best tool for each job, if you have access to them. In my case I’ve have 3ds Max at my disposal, which has some pretty good hair styling tools. My problem was that I couldn’t find any decent solution to transfer the guides from 3ds Max into LightWave unless I shelled out another 2 grand. So I ended up writing this little LightWave modeler tool that imports hair guides (or splines really) via Autodesks ASCII Scene Export format, .ASE.

Check out my ASE Spline Import page for more details and to download the tool.

If you find this tool useful, I hope I’ll see some really nice hair renders surfacing in the LightWave community. :)

I recently polished it a bit by giving it a decent GUI and some more options, so I could release it. I hope some of you might find the tool useful in your workflow.

It’s a more elegant symmetry correction solution than my SymmXMirror tool as it’s non-destructive, but they both have their time and place when appropriate to use.

Fix Symmetry offers three different functions to help taking care of symmetry problems in objects while modeling. Symmetry Check, Quick Fix and the interactive Tolerance Fix.

Check out my Fix Symmetry page for more details and to download the tool.

Have fun and enjoy! :)